1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a liquid droplet discharge apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
An inkjet recording apparatus has been proposed where plural inkjet recording head units are arranged and fixed in a paper width direction in order to conduct image recording at a higher speed. For example, Japanese Patent No. 2,758,060 and Japanese Patent Application Publication (JP-A) No. 2000-000964 disclose inkjet recording apparatus where ink discharge ports are disposed in correspondence to the entire width of the recording paper.
In order to arrange and fix the plural inkjet recording head units, long support members (called “long members” below) are used. Oftentimes the long members and the portion (e.g., a frame) of the apparatus body of the inkjet recording apparatus to which the long members are attached are configured by different materials, and oftentimes the coefficients of thermal expansion are also different. For this reason, for example, when the inkjet recording apparatus is used in a temperature environment that is different from the environment in which the inkjet recording apparatus was manufactured, the deformation amounts are different for these members, and sometimes deformation such as bending arises in the long members. Due to this deformation, the discharge direction of the ink droplets changes, the landing positions of the ink droplets on the paper are displaced, and the image quality deteriorates. There is also the drawback that when the nozzle surface approaches the paper, these members contact the paper.
Moreover, excessive stress arises in the frame when the long members are strongly fixed to the frame in order to prevent such deformation of the long members.